Last Fall I went to a sheriff's auction to see a house sell that a bank was foreclosing on. The owner had died and the mortgage was not paid off. I wanted to see what the bank was going to have to bid. That would tell me what the outstanding balance of the mortgage was. I did not want to buy it at the sheriff's sale. I figured let the bank clean up the title and then we will see.
There was a pretty good crowd at the sale and I thought, well this could be interesting. There are several people who want to own this house. State Farm Bank out of New Jersey was servicing the mortgage. Their opening bid on the house was $21,531. That was also the last bid. It was the only bid. As I will explain that was a smart move on all those in attendance.
State Farm Bank deeded the house to FNMA, they were the ones with the cash in the mortgage. FNMA listed the house for sale at $37,500. Yes a slight markup there and people say the government never makes money. We made an offer on the house and quickly found out there were several investors making offers. That is when it becomes a blind auction. You have no idea what anyone else is offering so you take a stab in the dark.
Our offer was considered by FNMA, that is when we discovered we were dealing with a government agency. There were a lot of rules. You could not resell the house for over 16% more than purchase price for 2 years. You could not sell the house on contract. You will not be provided with an abstract but may purchase one through FNMA for $800. All forms used will be the forms that are FNMA approved. (interestingly they do not use the forms mandated by the government for all real estate purchases, they use an older form so all paper work had to be done twice. Once with the forms mandated by the government and then transcribed and filled out again on an older form no longer allowed except for Houses purchased from FNMA. They were in a hurry to get the deal closed before the end of the year and wanted a closing date in 2017.
No abstract makes my attorney very nervous. I went up to Mahaska Title and asked if they happened to have an abstract for the property. I have found that there is a good chance some bank has ordered an abstract on foreclosure properties but fails to pick it up. Yes there was an abstract in the files at Mahaska Title. Now is where it gets interesting. There was a previous mortgage on the property with State Farm Bank. They had foreclosed on a second mortgage instead of the first mortgage. FNMA did not have clear title to the property.
State Farm bank didn't care because they had the property off their books so why would they release the mortgage. January turned into February which turned into March. Every 2 weeks we were signing extensions while the brokers were trying to get State Farm Bank to respond. You see if we failed to close the deal by January 13 we would be charged a fee every day we were late. FNMA could just say, here sign an extension we do not have clear title.
2 weeks ago we received notice they were going to terminate our offer. Um, I don't think so. You may be a government agency that thinks you can make up the rules as you go, but you really don't want to do that. I sent them a bill for $700 for abstract costs and attorney fees. They must have passed that bill on to State Farm bank because lo and behold the original mortgage was released the next day and they set a closing date instead of terminating our offer.
So I quit on our project house to work on this one.
When a house has been shut down and winterized, it just means that all the pipes will not burst by freezing. It does not mean there will not be damage. First thing you do is tear out all toilets and throw them out the door. Yep did that today. Then most faucets will have to go, (this sink will go as well.)
Then you look for where the house has leaked. Ouch but I knew that was there going in so no surprise.
In my opinion they should make wall paper illegal. Horrid stuff. never comes off clean and easy, probably should have just tore the dry wall out of the one room that was wall papered and started over but I am too far into it to admit defeat now.
Not just one carpet in each room to tear out, Oh no there was another carpet under the carpet. What fun. Tear one out only to have to do it again.
Started painting and actually made progress. A new coat of paint always makes a house look so much better
At least I only had to paint one ceiling. I hate painting ceilings. You can see the paint is still wet in places when I took this picture several hours after I painted. The house was not drying well. I had to turn the heat up to make the furnace run more.
When the basement started to dry from the heat turned up, I found it did not dry up underneath the water heater. Well I guess that will have to go. I wonder if there was still water in it when they winterized the house. I think the house will be worth the pain of dealing with FNMA and all the repairs it will need.
There were several times in the last 90 days when I thought this deal would not happen. I was OK with that. We always say we do not want any house God does not want us to have. That includes telling God that. Praying to God and saying. Your will be done, only let this deal go through if it is what You want.
That makes my life a whole lot easier if I let God be in charge. I don't have to worry if it is a good deal, God takes care of it. A while back, Lisa, our real estate broker said to me, "you don't get bothered if you don't get a house." That's right if God is in charge why would I want what He doesn't want me to have.
But that doesn't mean it is always a smooth road. I have no idea why we had to wait 90 days for this house to close. Maybe this will line up with exactly the tenant God wants in this house. Maybe I will get the chance to share the grace of God with someone who I would not have met if the house had been available to rent 60 days ago. Maybe one of God's children is going to need a house in May and God is providing for them now already.
Some days I am just along for the ride, but what a ride it is if God is at the wheel.
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